Monday, March 28th 2011
News: Death Cab For Cutie
Listen To Death Cab For Cutie’s ‘You Are A Tourist’
Death Cab For Cutie is starting to let the sounds slip out from their 7th full length album Codes And Keys, which they spent the better part of last year recording.
Set for a May 31st release date, the album was produced by guitarist Chris Walla and recorded at various studios along the West Coast.
After hearing Gibbard do a stripped down live version of the title track a couple weeks ago in San Fran, we now get our first taste of the single You Are A Tourist. Have a listen.
The song is considerably more appealing than the title track, which frontman Ben Gibbard debuted at the Noise Pop festival earlier this month. All the same, none of it is quite as grabby as the material from their last album, 2008′s Narrow Stairs.
Thanks to Bryce at 107.7 The End for the hookup!
Urine idiot
As a Death Cab fan for many years, I am not excited for the new album. I am fine with bands evolving, in fact I encourage it. However, what draws me to Death Cab is their angular riffs chalk full of almost raging guitar tones. Knowing that this album is more keyboard based vs. guitar based makes me worried. After all, we know what happens when great bands ditch their guitars for shitty Casio keyboards (cough cough Radiohead).
I have played this 4-5 times today in hopes that something will stick out or grow on me. Yet the more I listen, the more it feels as if Death Cab is trying to sound like the countless copycat acts that have appeared since Seth Cohen first name dropped the band a half-decade ago. This song is truly disappointing if I do say so myself.
I remember when Ben actually wrote good lyrics and Death Cab wrote actually memorable and gorgeous melodies and the drumming didn’t suck.
So its not something you’d blast through the house like a lot of their output from Plans or Narrow Stairs – boo fuckin’ hoo, the back records are always gonna be there. I could easily see myself putting this on while i’m walking in the sun for cigarettes… its music for appreciating whats around you, and I think that’s what the band has always been about. They open your eyes to different things, and if they always followed the same formula in doing that it just wouldn’t work. 3½ out of 5 for me, since it does have appeal (if that of a subdued flavor)
I’ve been listening to death cab since circa 2000 when I was a freshman in college. It’s tough to read opinions about the band’s evolution from people that just picked them up along the way…at Transatlaticism or Plans…but to me this song sounds like a natural progression for Gibbard and Co. I like it a lot, and this is from someone who hated Narrow Stairs, sans “Cath…”. But shoot, my 1st taste of Death Cab was “Bend to Squares”, a track most “fans” probably don’t even have on their Ipods. Anyway, my two.
The GUITAR riff is actually really catchy. This is defintely not death cabs best work but it’s still good and has me excited for the rest of the album. I have every death cab album except narrow stairs. It’s nice to hear something a little different. They were writing darker songs and it’s cool to hear something new and upbeat.